Women in the Law

Partner Advises Women Law Grads to Value Adversity, Get Real About Balance

Andrews Kurth partner Kathleen Wu wishes someone would have told her at her law school graduation in 1985 to get real about work-life balance. It’s possible to have work and a family, Wu advises women law grads in a Texas Lawyer article. But there will be sacrifices. “Recent grads shouldn’t…

Jun 9, 2010 1:44 PM CDT

Major Law Firm Looks to ‘85 Broads’ for Female Attorney Empowerment

A major New Jersey-based law firm is looking to a global women’s networking group with a memorable name to help the firm’s seasoned female attorneys expand their professional contacts and influence. McCarter & English is now part of the 85 Broads community, reports the Hartford Business Journal. In a law…

Jun 4, 2010 6:05 PM CDT

Ex-Con Earns Law Degree, Hopes to Help Others Like Herself

Things didn’t look good for Lynn Burke when she got out of prison 20 years ago, after serving two years on a felony fraud conviction. Broke and the mother of four young children, she went home to find them living in squalor in a public housing project as her husband…

Jun 1, 2010 12:52 PM CDT

Solving the Work-Life Equation

Workplace flexibility + exercise and leisure + family involvement = greater satisfaction

Jun 1, 2010 9:00 AM CDT

O’Connor Confesses She Worried Five Years at Home Would Wreck Her Career

Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor had a problem when she was starting out in her legal career: Her baby sitter had quit, and she had three young children at home. O’Connor spent the next five years at home raising the children. A recent article in the New York Times magazine…

May 27, 2010 4:35 PM CDT

Sutherland Asbill to Represent Transocean in Oil Spill Litigation

Sutherland Asbill & Brennan has been tapped to handle litigation over the Gulf oil spill for Transocean Ltd., the owner of the BP oil rig that exploded. The litigation team will be headed by Rachel Clingman, who leaped to Sutherland Asbill from Fulbright & Jaworski in 2007, according to The…

May 27, 2010 2:18 PM CDT

Law Prof Surveys Legal Secretaries, Chronicles Layoffs, Conflicts with Female Lawyers

Legal secretaries are largely invisible in the academic literature, but one Chicago law professor is setting out to change that. Felice Batlan, an assistant law professor at the Chicago-Kent College of Law, surveyed 164 legal secretaries last year and learned some sobering news, the Wisconsin Law Journal reports. Nearly 20…

May 26, 2010 10:30 AM CDT

Kagan Didn’t Have ‘Paradoxical Freedom’ Benefiting Ginsburg, O’Connor

Neither Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg nor Sandra Day O’Connor chose between career and children. O’Connor had three sons and a 56-year marriage before her husband’s death, while Ginsburg had two children and has also been married for 56 years. A New York Times magazine article wonders if the discrimination they…

May 25, 2010 11:00 AM CDT

Forget Work/Life Balance: All Work Is Great Fun for Some, Says Consultant

Once a litigator, Yolanda Cash Jackson is now a more than full-time lobbyist and she loves it. The 51-year-old partner of Becker & Poliakoff in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., intertwines her work and social life, “relationship building” with a signature smile throughout a jam-packed schedule that could begin with a breakfast…

May 18, 2010 5:55 PM CDT

Laid-Off Eversheds Associate Wins Reverse Bias Judgment

A laid-off Eversheds associate who says he should have been rated higher than a colleague on maternity leave has won a bias judgment against the British law firm. An Employment Tribunal awarded 123,300 pounds to former associate John de Belin, according to stories in the London Daily Mail and the…

May 18, 2010 12:44 PM CDT

Mother-Daughter Duos Go to Law School

When 53-year-old Robin Wood begins law school this fall at the University of Maryland, she’ll have a mentor waiting: her 25-year-old daughter, Portia, who will be a 3L. Andrea Thomas, who is 52, followed the example of her mother when she graduated last week from the University of the District…

May 17, 2010 10:30 AM CDT

This Week’s News: Meet Elena Kagan, Supreme Court Nominee

A smorgasbord of of news rounding out the week concerning the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan for a U.S. Supreme Court seat focuses not only on her qualifications for the job and political views (as best they can be determined), but personal qualities and marital status (single). A Media…

May 14, 2010 11:15 PM CDT

Today’s News: Obama Picks Kagan, GOP Lawmakers Launch SCOTUS YouTube Channel

After this morning’s announcement by President Barack Obama that he had selected Solicitor General Elena Kagan as his choice for the U.S. Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice John Paul Stevens, the media whirred into gear with details about her background and the confirmation battle that just about any…

May 11, 2010 12:01 AM CDT

Student’s Prizewinning Law Review Article Ignites Texas Tax Debate

Nikki Laing is no ordinary law student. And her upcoming Baylor Law Review article is more than a bit unusual, too. At 35, she is the mother of an 11-year-old and has already put together a successful small business. Plus, she is not only an accountant but last year scored…

May 10, 2010 8:21 PM CDT

Embarassing Depo Wins Conn. Sect’y of State the Right to Run for AG Job

The embarrassing deposition was apparently worthwhile: A Duke University law graduate now serving as Connecticut’s secretary of state has won a court ruling that she has sufficient legal experience to run for election as the state’s attorney general. Hartford Superior Court Judge Michael Sheldon ruled today that Susan Bysiewicz’s work…

May 5, 2010 7:56 PM CDT